Dog rescue is a sad and dark place but as a rescuer regardless of all the horrible things you see... the abuse, the neglect, the death, the ones you can't help, the mean and cruel people... you deal with it for the dogs. You put on a happy face and you deal. This blog is to help one dog rescuer deal and hopefully show other rescuers they are not alone, even though it feels like that most of the time.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Neurological Puppy

Rescue most definitely is not for everyone. We had a litter of puppies born and to make a very long story short one of the puppies we discovered was blind. Ok, so no big deal. Well as the weeks went on the puppy was developmentally slower in progressing then her litter mates. Ok, no big deal, she is blind. WRONG!

The puppy was moved to a new foster home away from mom where she could receive some one on one attention. After 4 hours of having the puppy the foster home called me and said "something isn't right." At 13 weeks she was evaluated by a very well known vet office with excellent vets specializing in all sorts of things. We use this vet office a lot! The prognoses was not good and the vet recommend immediately taking her down from the adoption website. This was not a health dog and she had zero chance of a happy life. The puppy has neurological issues, she was pace non stop until she got so tired she just collapsed from exhaustion. She was blind, which we knew. She has sensory disorder meaning sometimes you touched her and she didn't mind other times you touched her and she would growl and snap. She was only 13 weeks at this point but she was going to be a 60 pound dog soon enough and that is a scary though.... a blind dog growling and biting! To add to that the older she got and the more she grew she was going to eventually be unable to walk at all. She was already high stepping (sign of neurological issues), she was walking in circles, unable to balance so always had to lean against something and her back end would just give out from time to time. She had started flying biting the air which is a type of seizure and with time would get worse. She did not have the ability to understand she had to potty so would never be house trained. AND she had no sense of smell.. you could put a treat the smelliest treat you can find under her nose and if she wasn't hungry she wouldn't eat it. She also never wagged her tail and didn't respond to voices, maybe for a second but then would turn away and this was all the time only randomly.Basically she was a heartbeat in a puppy outfit. She only did what she needed to survive... eat and drink.
So at 13 weeks old I had to make the decision to put a puppy to sleep. That was not on my top one million things I want to do list.

Of course when this decision was made I had people contacting me saying they were take her, they could handle all of this. To those people I want to say YOU ARE SELFISH! And that would be the most inhumane thing that could ever be done. To be honest I am pissed that she went through a spay surgery and was microchipped and given 2 rounds of shots. There was no reason to put this poor dog through any of that. And this is why rescue isn't for everyone. YOUR HEAD NEEDS TO MAKE DECISIONS NOT YOUR HEART. Would it be easier to keep her alive... easier emotionally, yes. Physically no but emotionally yes. But the truth is you are doing it for YOU not for the dog. And that really makes me mad.

Am I sad yes, am I devastated no. I feel like if a dog is suffering putting it down is the right thing to do. Am devastated over the dog that was perfectly healthy that someone was mean to and I have to put to sleep because they are no sick from the abuse, I am devastated over the puppy that gets parvo and dies because some a-hole didn't vaccinate their dog. Those thing devastate me. Putting to sleep a sick dog that was no fault of anyone's doesn't devastate me.